


One Player Game or Michael in College

by mothman4life



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Aromantic Michael Mell, Asexual Michael Mell, Autistic Michael Mell, College, Gen, M/M, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Platonic Relationships, Platonic Soulmates, Sad with a Happy Ending, Social Anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-25 09:07:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30086733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mothman4life/pseuds/mothman4life
Summary: Michael is alone at college after he and Jeremy drifted apart post-SQUIP. Will he be able to find a different player 2?
Kudos: 3





	One Player Game or Michael in College

**Author's Note:**

> Jeremy and Michael are no longer friends in this story based on events in my life, rather than my thoughts on the characters. It was not my intention to make Jeremy seem like a bad person or friend and I don't consider the character as such.

Michael Mell made it to college, but not the way he thought he would. He survived high school, but he made it out with his life and not much else. Not his best friend, his player 2 or his favorite person, who all happened to be the same one.  
Michael and Jeremy made up after the SQUIP incident, but it wasn’t the same afterward, not really. Jeremy made friends with some of the popular kids and finally started talking to Christine, which Michael was fine with. He didn’t want Jeremy to not have other friends, but he wanted Jeremy to want him too.   
They were supposed to be here together, but now Michael didn’t even know what college Jeremy had gone to. The last time Michael saw him was at Jeremy’s graduation party, but things were so distant and awkward by then he hadn’t even been able to ask.   
When Michael first arrived on campus he had locked himself in his dorm as soon as his family left and played video games all weekend. He had only played one player games for a while now and part of him wondered if Jeremy did too.  
Probably not. Jeremy had enough other friends to play with, more than he’d ever had when he was with Michael. But after they stopped hanging out Michael failed to find anyone else. Everyone at school already had their own friends and everyone else Michael knew was friends with Jeremy. They tried to stay friends with both of them, but it just became too awkward and they were all closer with Jeremy in the end.  
Michael wandered around campus with his headphones on as he always did. He hadn’t been able to listen to Bob Marley in a long time, it didn’t really suit his mood anymore.   
Life at college hadn’t been much different than high school so far, but he didn’t spend much time out of his room. He hated large crowds of people and never knew what to do without Jeremy. He hadn’t made a friend on his own since Jeremy, which had been what… first grade? He could hardly remember his life without him.   
Michael decided to major in game design, because video games were the only thing he really cared about anymore. He and Jeremy had talked about doing it together and having their own company. Everything in his life, every part of him, was so entwined with Jeremy that he couldn’t escape the thought of him.  
Even though it had been a few years, part of Michael still wanted to tell Jeremy about every new game, every idea he had, and every other thing. He was lost without him.   
Michael had wept when Jeremy had first abandoned him and it hadn’t been the last time. Sometimes he told himself he could do better, but other times he believed he wouldn’t ever find anyone else. He still hadn’t. Jeremy had already moved on, why couldn’t he? Sometimes Michael believed that he was unlovable to anyone other than his moms.  
College was supposed to be a fresh start, but Michael was still Michael, so he was still alone. So he still wanted Jeremy back, even after it was far past impossible.   
He was surrounded by other people who loved video games as much as he did, but he still couldn’t find a way to connect with any of them. That had never been his area of expertise and it never needed to be, until now.   
With Jeremy, it didn’t matter if they were in a crowd of people, as long as they were together they would be in their own world, a world that was small and safe and that Michael didn’t have to navigate alone. He didn’t need to talk to strangers or make new friends because Jeremy was there to guide him through it.   
Now Michael was all alone in the biggest world with the biggest crowds he had ever been in. He felt it most when he was in lecture halls that could seat hundreds of people. Michael would always sit near the back, desperate to slip away as soon as possible, to be allowed to put his headphones on and escape from the outside world again.   
As soon as his Intro to Game Design class ended, Michael scooped up his laptop, put on his headphones, and pulled up his hood. He escaped the lecture hall before the rest of the class made it to the exit and walked briskly out into the fall air, trying to stay ahead of the crowd.   
He cut through the turning trees along the walkway and headed to get slushy from a small restaurant on campus. They didn’t taste the same as they did back home, but they were one of the few things that made him feel even a little bit better.   
He started to head back to his dorm, but decided to walk outside instead. He found a secluded area under the trees and sat alone on a small bench as the fall day began to warm. With half a slushy left, he began to make his way back to the path after the crowds cleared.   
He realized he had no idea where he was. Having cut through so much of the lawn, he was much further from his dorm than he had ever been. When he and his moms had arrived for orientation, they had urged him to take a tour around the campus and he had promised them he would take a look around on his own after they left. Then he played video games for 15 hours.   
Michael walked around campus, his slushy beginning to melt. He found the library and went in on a whim. He claimed an empty table away from the scarce other students and took out his laptop and left his headphones and hood firmly in place.   
As a result he didn’t notice the frantic looking student in front of him at first. Looking up, he cautiously removed his headphones, placing them around his neck.  
“Are you in the game design course?” he asked Michael.  
“Yeah?”  
“Can you help me?”  
Then Michael spilled his slushy. 

Michael flailed helplessly. The red syrup water had missed his computer, but had poured across the rest of the table and then onto the floor. The boy ran off, which was a bit abrupt, but Michael was not surprised. It had been one of the longer interactions he’d experienced since arriving at college.   
However, Michael was surprised when the boy came back with paper towels, apparently having ventured out more than Michael since he already knew where the bathrooms were.  
“I’m sorry,” the boy said as he began to clean up, “this is all my fault,”   
“What?” Michael was still taken aback and unable to say much else. He began to gather his things away from the spill.  
“I shouldn’t have bothered you while you were busy, I’m sorry,” he said again.  
“No, it’s fine,” Michael avoided eye contact, but tried to help. The table was still sticky, but there was little else to do.  
“I hate to ask you this, but can you help me with my coding?”   
“Yeah, sure,” Michael was relieved to go back into his comfort zone as the boy pushed his computer to him.   
Michael was already in the zone a few moments later when he repeated “Yeah, I can do this,”

Michael always went to the library after class after that day. The boy knew to find him there and it was a way to get out of his room. They usually sat across from each other, computers between them. Michael was more comfortable that way. Coding was easy, but talking was not.  
It wasn’t much, but it was something. It wasn’t enough, but it was a start. 

“Can I buy you a slushy for that one I made you spill?”   
“That wasn’t your fault,” Michael replied absentmindedly. This had come up before.  
“Well for your help then?”  
“Yeah, I guess,” Michael adjusted his glasses, still examining lines of code.  
“Maybe we should put the computers away after what happened last time,” he said.  
“Oh, okay,” Michael was struggling to break concentration.  
“Are you coming, Michael?” the boy asked after he packed up.  
“Yeah,” Michael picked up his things and started to put his headphones on, but he hesitated and ultimately decided to leave them around his neck instead.   
“What’s your name?” Michael asked.  
“It’s Ellis,” he answered as they walked out of the library in the mid afternoon. Michael hadn’t noticed while he was sitting down, but he was tall. Other than that he wasn’t like Jeremy at all, but maybe that was a good thing.  
“Wait, how did you know my name?”  
“It’s on your bag, Michael,”  
“Oh yeah,” Michael looked away as his fingers itched for his headphones. He stayed silent until Ellis continued.  
“I never see you anywhere but the library. Do you just live off of slushies?” he smiled gently.  
“I usually eat in my dorm,” Michael replied, blushing slightly.   
“Well, you can sit with me in the dining hall if you want, I usually go around six,”  
“Okay,” Michael replied meekly.   
“Red slushy, right?” Ellis said as he ordered for Michael, looking at his red sweatshirt.  
“Yeah, if I spill you’ll never be able to see it. Thanks,” he added as he took the frozen sugar water.   
“No problem. There’s a video game club, have you ever been?”  
“No,”  
“We have tournaments sometimes, I think you would be awesome,”  
Michael didn’t say anything as his face heated once more.   
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to overwhelm you. You don’t have to,”  
“No, it’s fine,” Michael said, taking a sip of the cold drink. And for the first time in a long time Michael truthfully felt fine. Better than fine in fact.  
“That sounds great,” Michael told him. 

Michael had gone to some of the club meetings, but had also stayed away for a while. It had been fun, but also overwhelming. He didn’t know anyone there and Ellis knew everyone. Sometimes Ellis was too busy to talk to him and Michael didn’t want to take him away from his other friends. So eventually he stopped going all together.   
He didn’t know how to explain, so he stopped going to the library as well. Class, dorms, nothing else. It was fine. He’d been alone before and he could do it again. It was comfortable. He didn’t want to be a bother, so it was better this way.  
He had classes, he had video games, not many slushies. It was almost enough.  
The first semester was ending soon, so Ellis wouldn’t need his help in class anymore. What else would he possibly want him around for after that? Michael came to class at the last minute and left as soon as possible, so he wouldn’t have to try and talk to him.  
At the end of class in December, Michael had already packed up while there were still a few minutes left of class in order to get a head start. As soon as the clock struck he headed for the exit. As he pulled his headphones over his ears, he thought he heard his name. He didn’t turn around. He didn’t stop.  
He burst out the double doors and walked briskly in the direction of his dorms. He started music as fast as his shaking fingers could, not bothering to see what it was. Not Bob Marley, never Bob Marley these days.   
He heard his name again, this time as a muffled shout. He turned his headphones up louder. He was walking fast, but he wanted to run. A hand grabbed his shoulder and turned him around.  
“Why are you avoiding me?” Ellis demanded. Michael removed his headphones slowly, his hands shaking.  
“I wasn’t… I wasn’t avoiding you,” Michael said softly, looking at the concrete.  
“Yes you are! You were practically running from me just now! What did I do?”  
“Nothing, you didn’t do anything,”  
“Then what? I never see you anymore! Why did you stop coming? To everything?”  
“I didn’t think you’d want me to,” Ellis looked like Michael had slapped him.  
“Why wouldn’t I want you to come?”  
“I thought I might be bothering you. I didn’t want to keep you from your other friends. I thought you were probably just trying to be nice,”  
Ellis was still. This time he didn’t say anything.  
“I just didn’t think you wanted me around. Not really,” Michael’s eyes were growing hot. “Class is almost over. You have other friends. What do you need me for?” his voice shook.  
“Michael, I… ” Ellis hesitated, “I want you around. I want you to be my friend too. Please, you have to believe me,” The walkway had all but cleared of other students.  
“Yeah, okay,” Michael moved his glasses to wipe his eyes.  
Ellis put an arm around Michael’s shoulders “You okay, bud? You look like you could use a slushy,”  
“Yeah,” Michael smiled slightly through his tears and replaced his glasses. “That sounds good.”

Half a slushy later Michael and Ellis were inside the on-campus restaurant. It was too cold out for much else.   
“Don’t those make you cold?” Ellis asked.  
“Not really. My body has adapted to take a slushy any time of year,”  
They hadn’t talked much about what had happened.   
After a short silence, Ellis asked quietly “So why do you think people don’t want you around?”  
“I don’t know. A lot of people don’t, I guess,” Michael looked into the slushy for answers.  
“Did I do anything to make you feel unwelcome?”  
“Not even a little bit. This was all my fault,”  
Ellis shook his head “Were you bullied in school though?”  
“No,” Michael said, “Well not really… just nobody wanted me except… my friend, but then he didn’t either.” Michael continued, “Nobody even treated me like I existed, they all recoiled from me, acted like I was contagious. It didn’t matter when I still had… him, but then all of the sudden it did.”  
“Oh,” he paused. “What was his name?”  
“Jeremy,” It felt like a secret he had been keeping inside him. “His name was Jeremy.”  
“It sounds like he was really important to you,”  
“Yeah, he was,”  
“I just want to understand. Were you guys… a thing? You don’t have to answer.”  
“No… not really.” Michael thought for a moment. “He was my best friend. I loved him,” his voice broke. “I never wanted him to leave me, not for anything. I wanted him to be my best friend for life.”   
Ellis nodded.  
“I still want that… a best friend. And I want a boy,” Michael went red. “But, I’m aroace. Look, I just really want to play video games.” he concluded awkwardly.  
“That sounds really nice.”  
And Michael knew that from then on he could play all the two player games he wanted.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first piece so I would appreciate any feedback or suggestions for a similar genre to what I have here.


End file.
